Research Finds Catastrophic Inability to Answer Basic Customer Questions

Research finds catastrophic inability to answer basic customer questions Leading UK companies are failing to provide online answers to even the simplest customer queries. Research carried out by eCustomer service software provider Transversal found that 64% of leading consumer web sites answered fewer than two out of ten of the most often asked customer questions. Only 16% could answer five or more questions successfully.

Nearly half of the organisations surveyed (44%) also failed to respond to customer questions escalated by email - and those that did took an average of 33 hours to reply. These damning statistics highlight critical flaws in how major organisations approach the online market.

The research surveyed fifty leading organisations in the travel, banking, insurance, consumer goods and telecoms sectors. It asked ten common, sector-specific questions on each site, as well as emailing a single question to the organisation's customer service department. Responses were marked for relevance and for time taken to respond.

Web sites in the strongest sector - banking -could only provide adequate answers to three out of the ten questions asked. The worst sector was telecoms, which could answer just one of ten questions on average. Scores varied greatly between individual companies surveyed - with 34% unable to answer any questions at all.

The highest number of responses came from telecoms companies (70%) but they still took over a day to reply - 32 hours on average.

"Given the growth in the online channel over the past five years, these figures demonstrate an astonishing lack of understanding by the average organisation," said Davin Yap, CEO, Transversal. "Our research shows that there is a growing customer service chasm between those companies that take online seriously and those that don't. Consumers on the web want answers now - they don't want to have to wait days for an email response or be forced to call a contact centre. However many organisations seem to be forcing customers down these channels through an inability to answer simple questions in a timely manner."

Nearly 50% of UK consumers use the web as part of the purchasing process for goods and services and it is estimated that over 60% of emails to contact centres are generated by consumers unable to find answers on company web sites.

The survey was carried out in February 2005, with researchers visiting leading UK websites, following a set methodology."

Posted to the site on 1st April 2005